Centre for Experimental Social Sciences

What we do

CESS Nuffield – FLAME University is a collaboration between Nuffield College in the University of Oxford and FLAME University designed to conduct and promote lab and lab-in-the-field experiments in India.

Nuffield College in the University of Oxford started its own Centre for Experimental Social Sciences in 2008 and we joined the CESS network in 2016, with counterparts at both Nuffield College and the Universidad de Santiago de Chile.
At FLAME University, the Centre pursues three objectives:

Conducting social science experiments and publishing the knowledge created;

Building an international research community by partnering with academics working in the US, Europe, and elsewhere;

Promoting social-science experimentation in India.

Our lab features 30 Dell laptop computers for mobile experiments and 20 traditional lab stations with a similar interactive feel as the CESS labs in Oxford and Santiago, Chile. Based in Pune, India’s university town, we have access to students at 12 universities locally.

A unique feature of CESS Nuffield – FLAME University is our capacity to run high-quality lab-in-the-field experiments in a wide array of settings in India with diverse subject pools. We aim to work with non-student subject pools such as people living in tribal villages and low-income housing, school teachers and principals, factory workers, working women, laborers, and construction workers. This mobile lab allows researchers to move closer to policy-relevant questions by studying subjects who face the researcher’s question of interest in normal life, along with games designed to mimic the context in which they make decisions.

CESS Nuffield - FLAME University also works closely with local and international partners to translate research ideas into actionable designs suited for the unique environment of developing countries. Leveraging its expertise in experimental methods and its cultural fluency in India, CESS Nuffield - FLAME University is a one-stop hub for adapting ambitious projects to complex settings.

While the Centre welcomes proposals to use the lab for academic research on any topic and from any social science (or related field), we encourage the following: cooperation, trust, behavior change, behavioral economics, and law & economics. We also welcome researchers with interest in running lab-in- the-field studies in applied policy contexts such as gender and competition, water and sanitation, health and nutrition, policing, and livelihoods.

Our Team

Sharon Barnhardt

Director & PI for Economics and Public Policy PhD, Harvard University

Raymond Duch

Chairman, Board of Advisors and Official FellowNuffield College, University of Oxford

Pavan Mamidi

Co-Director & PI for Law, Management, and Sociology DPhil, University of Oxford

Tirtha Patel

Research AssociateB.Sc., FLAME University

Saumya Sampath

Research AssociateB.B.A., FLAME University

Shardul Vaidya

Lab Manager B.Tech., - Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay.

Harshada Yadav

Research AssociateM.Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science

INTERNS 2018 - 19

Kapish Agrawal

International Studies & Public Policy B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Harshada B.

Applied Mathematics & Economics B.Sc. Candidate
FLAME University

Shreshth Bansal

Economics & Finance B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Jayanth Deshmukh

Public Policy & International Studies B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Rhea Dhar

Economics & Psychology B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Padmapriya Eunny

Economics & Psychology B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Srinath Hariharan

Digital Marketing & Finance B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Deepta Iyer

Psychology & Advertising and Branding B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Riddhi Jain

Applied Math & Economics B.Sc. Candidate
FLAME University

Gopika Kumaran

Economics & Psychology B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Maitreyi Menon

Economics & Public Policy B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Manasa Narayanan

Economics & Psychology B.A. Candidate
Sophia College for Women

Ragini Rao

Public Policy & International Studies B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Sidharth Rath

Public Policy & Environmental Studies B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Hanshita Rongali

Sociology & Environmental Studies B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Amalina Sengupta

Psychology & Human Resources B.A. Candidate
FLAME University

Events

The lab hosted Dr. Mudit Kapoor who led a seminar on "The Association of History of Neonatal Death with Neonatal and Early Neonatal Mortality Rate: Implications for Identifying Vulnerable Group in Resource Constrained Economies"

Pre-doc Fellow Emmy Lindstam from the University of Mannheim presented her work on "The Conceptions of National Identity and Ambivalence towards Immigration".

The lab hosted a general interest seminar on the topic of the problem of Air Pollution and the Maharashtra Star Rating Program in collaboration with EPIC India and J-PAL South Asia. The interaction involved discussions on policy, transparency and citizen involvement.

Dr. B. Shekar of IIM Bangalore led a General Interest Seminar on 'Creativity and Innovation : Inquiry-centric Perceptual Learning through the Arts '.

Dr. Aniruddha Pangarkar from MICA led a seminar on "The Effects of CSR and Corporate Culture in Securing Front-line Service Employee Support during a Product-Harm Crisis.

Amma Panin, the FLAME University Postdoctoral Research Officer at Nuffield College (Oxford) presents her work "Formal Insurance and Religious Offerings"

CNFU co-Director Dr. Pavan Mamidi presents at the 13th annual India Innovation Summit organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry in Bangalore.

Dr. Sharon Barnhardt, CNFU Director, teaches on "Why Randomize" in the annual J-PAL/CLEAR South Asia Executive Training held in Delhi.

"Dr. Sumeet Mhaskar, Junior Research Partner at the Max Planck Institute for the study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity - Claiming Entitlements in a Neo-Liberal CityMumbai’s Ex-millworkers Political Mobilisation on the Housing Question"

"Dr. Narayanan Srinivasan, Prof. and Head, Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad - Effects of Attention on Decision-Making"

John Jensenius III, Postdoctoral Researcher and Lab Manager at CESS Nuffield presented his work titled "On Inactivity in the Lab."

Prof. Stuart Sorokoa, University of Michigan, presented his work titled "More Bad News: A Cross-National Psychophysiological Exploration of Negativity Biases in Reactions to Network News"

Evolution of Cooperation with Heterogeneous Conditional Cooperators

Mr. Nicholas Haas, PhD candidate in the Politics Department at NYU, presents a project co-authored with Dr. Pavan Mamidi, co-Director of CESS Nuffield - FLAME University. The talk was titled "From De Jure to De Facto: Ethnic Occupational Stereotyping and the Persistence of Hierarchy.

Prof. Oindrila Dey from the Economics Department workshops her experimental research design with the CESS team and FLAME faculty members

The CESS team runs a pilot lab-in-the-field experiment

Professor Ram Mahalingam from the Univeristy of Michigan Ann Arbor, presents his work titled “Mindful Mindset, Interconnectedness and Engaged Living”

Professor Raymond Duch from Nuffield College, University of Oxford, holds a public lecture titled “Is Cheating a National Pastime? Evidence from Tax Experiments in Chile, Britain, and Russia.”

The CESS team runs a pilot experiment with a delegation from NYU Abu Dhabi.

CESS Nuffield-FLAME University holds a panel discussion on “Caste and Gender in India” with the NYU Abu Dhabi delegation, Prof. Juhi Sidharth from FLAME University and Ram Mahalingam from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.